Thats right folks! Black Pritchard is no longer the jobless male he was on Thursday.

If you checked out my blog about a coffee course I did then you’ll know that I was asked to apply for a job as a ‘Apprentice Barista’ for some guys cafe in Bourke Street. It was an interesting experience I’ll tell you that.

Like every good boy, I decided it’s better to be early than late. Perhaps one of the good things my mother taught me from such a young age but in this case, I may have taken it a little to far: The interview was set for 2 o’clock, and I arrived at 12:30. Luckily, (unlike the rest of the world) Melbourne is a wonderful city that has a cafe next to a cafe so I could easily just sit for the next hour and a half and wait. But I wanted to check out the place first so I did a little walk-by inspection just to see what kind of people worked there, if it was busy. You know, the shit you should already know before you walk into an interview. It was an outdoor café and unbeknownst to me, by walking past, I was in fact standing smack bang in the middle of the place. I really wish I had realised this earlier because not two seconds later this young waitress was walking out of the kitchen, backwards through the door to come outside, with a bowl of pumpkin soup. She then swept passed me but tripped, with her face heading right for my chest, which sends me flying to the ground and her landing right on top of me with the pumpkin soup splattered all over us both. This is as close to hertro-sex as I’d like to get.

“Oh holy-shit balls”

Seem to be the only words she is capable of pulling out of her mouth. I’m in shock and am lost for words. I wish I had something witty to say, but alas, I’m more concerned about the fact that I have ruined my only (clean) white t-shirt. The only thing I can do is laugh. Why is she still on top of me? Once she finally dismounts me, she introduces herself as Gemma, obviously one of the waitresses here. I’m not sure if I should tell her that I’ve got a job interview in an hour and a half, it might come across as desperate or dorky but I am covered in pumpkin soup, so she suggests taking me out the back to get washed up. I don’t really have any other option so I’m forced to go through the kitchen to the back room where there is a bathroom, and Gemma finds me one of the cafés t-shirts for me to replace my now orange mush that’s on my (now) old shirt. As I’m changing my shirt a tall guy with short black hair comes around the corner to see what all the fuss is. He introduces himself as Scott, the manager. And the guy I’ve got my interview with. Brilliant, I’m not sure how I’m going to get myself out of this one. So I come clean. Both literally and metaphorically. I explain that my name is Blake and I’m ridiculously early for the interview and that I was just checking the place out before I came back at 2. It’s like a light-blub went off in Gemma’s head.

“You’re the guy Claire was talking about! Good looking country kid!” She says enthusisatically.

“Gemma, Keep it in your pants.” Scott snaps.

Great. So I’ve already got a reputation in this town and I’ve been here for all of two seconds. Hey, I’m not complaining, there are a lot worse thing for people to be saying. Being the ‘country kid’ isn’t always a bad thing and if they want to throw something about good looks then I’m not going to stop them. It’s ironic that the only people that have called me good looking in my entire life have been women. Maybe I was straight in a past life.

Luckily, Scott shared the same views as my mother. He appreciates it when people are earlier rather than later and he was’t busy so he said he could interview me now.

I decided honesty was the best policy when it came to this interview. I had never had another job, I’ve never worked in hospitality, and I think that lattés and flat whites are the same thing. I think he was a little taken a-back with all my honesty. He wanted me to make him a latté and a Piccolo latté. Shit. What the fuck is a Piccolo latté. Calmly I used every bit of will power to remember what the fuck it could have been. I had guessed. One short of coffee with a bit of foam on the top. I remember that was one of the fancy named ones.

Scott laughs and tries the latté.

“You know, I never saw the purpose of a flat white either. But you give the people what they want. You’re coffee is alright. I’ll teach you the rest of the stuff you need to know when you start next week. Sound good?”

I’m a little speechless for the second time today.

“Sure”

And just like that.. I’m now employed bitches! Sure, it’s only $15 an hour but I sure could be doing a lot worse! I know some of my high school friends that worked in McDonalds for a lot less so in my eyes I’m doin’ grand!

I went home to have a Champagne with my socailly awkward Aunt. She was asleep after one, and I finished the rest of the bottle while dancing in my living room like this.

Cheers to my new job! Hopefully this means i’ll have some friends to celebrate with in the future!

Check out my Twitter while you’re reading this. I think you should follow me, I’m so new to this and have such few followers, it just looks sad.

It’s the first thing that everybody notices about Melbourne. Our abundance of Cafés and our amazing coffee culture. Coming from the sticks, where a coffee is ‘Nescafé’ instant crap, the whole idea that coffee doesn’t just dissolve in hot water is very new to me. I blame my parents in the failure that is my coffee education. So I’ve decided to take myself to a coffee course to learn the “art” that is coffee making. It seems to be the industry in this city that is always in need of people to work in. And from what I’ve seen, it doesn’t take very much apart from being charming and friendly. So I’ll give it a shot. How hard can it be?

I had to be at this place by 9am. I still have no idea how these bloody tram things work: Do they have a structured timetable or, do they just run whenever they want to? Because that’s what it feels like. Anyway, so I arrived 15 minutes late thanks to the public transport system, luckily the woman was just explaining about the coffee beans and the two different types so I didn’t miss much. After about an hour of ranting how the coffee must be stored and how to treat the coffee, we finally get around to making these things. Getting the ‘grind’ right and making sure it’s tampered correctly. Most of the class had problems with this, and it never worked for them. To my surprise, I was finding it all very easy. Perhaps to easy. I’m no ‘Brain-Pie’ so either these kids are just plain stupid or I’m a natural barista. I would like to hope it was the latter, but one can never be sure. Then it was all about the different types of coffee. I never did a language at school, but I sure wish I leant Italian now. Piccolo, Affogato, Macchiato, Galão, Caffè Marcocchino blah blah blah. Learning these was not the difficult part. The one part of this course that I got really stuck in was the difference between the Café Latte and Flat White.

And this is where I got really confused. The ‘latte’ and the ‘flat white’ (From my understanding), are the exact same thing just in different cups. So I had to ask.

“Whats the difference between a flat white and a latte?”

She paused and had to think for a second. “I won’t tell you. I’ll show you”

And so she began. She made IDENTICAL COFFEES. In different cups of course; one mug and one glass cup. The only thing she did differently was putting less froth into the flat white.

“So basically” .. I said, trying my hardest not to sound patronising. “It’s the exact same thing but in different cups.”

“Essentially, yes. But flat white has less froth.”

To a coffee novice (to me), they are the exact same thing. So I decided to be a little playful. The last part of the class was to make the three most popular coffees which are of course; the Café Latte, The Cappuccino, and the Flat White. I made three IDENTICAL COFFEES in three different cups/mugs. Put a little love heart in chocolate powder on top of the Cappuccino but that’s it. Otherwise, three identical coffees. She tried all three before nodding her head and telling me what a wonderful job I did. This is a woman who has obviously been surrounded by coffee her entire career, so she must know a thing or two.

She then continued to ask me if I was looking for work. Hells to the yeah I’m looking for work! She has a friend on Bourke Street that is looking for an apprentice barista to work in his cafe. She thinks (and I quote)

“A good looking guy like yourself could do a great job in this industry.”

I now have an interview on Friday.

In the meantime I’m doing some research, which is basically drinking as much coffee as I can. Here is a photo of my LARGE latte. Once I stop shaking I might go for a run to get rid of all the energy before crashing tonight in front of a Sandra Bullock film.

Also, I’ve just gotten my Twitter up and going, so please feel free to follow as I slowly figure out what the fuck twitter is.